


Into Oblivion

by Sedgewick



Category: Chaos Walking - Patrick Ness
Genre: First Draft No Beta: SOAK UP THE NIGHT!, I'll leave it up to you to guess who these guys are, M/M, Mental Illness, noise - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 19:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3179627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sedgewick/pseuds/Sedgewick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Noise is the least of his worries; he brought his own madness with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Into Oblivion

For him, the Noise is a quietness. He takes comfort in the chiming queries of birds, the quiet contentment of the turtles. Even the Noise of men isn't without some comfort, to know exactly what to expect. The collective thoughts of two-hundred or so men is a whisper next to the choleric cacophony of an Old World city, but he supposes it must be an unwelcome novelty to the spacefarers and their charges. He does his best not to think of the women, the silent ever-present threat that drips off them, somehow so much greater than before. His only quarrel with the state of things is the same one he met in the last backwaters of the Old World: in a small town, it's hard to treat his condition, not in the only way that works, the only way he knows. People notice, people see, and it's hard to slip back into the invisible world that's all his own without the detritus of the city to cover the blood that trails behind him.  
  
The voices in his head clamoring for his attention have nothing to do with the Noise. It's been there for as long as he can remember, in the wheezing slums of London, the silent Hebrides, and... _that place_. It started in that place, he thinks, if he could think, if his thoughts weren't coursing through him faster than he can bear. His skin, his skull-- they're not enough, he's not enough to contain it all, like a great beast trying to wrap a man's skin around itself, a mockery of humanity. He can feel the tearing, sound of skin splitting, fingers pushing against the backs of his eyeballs, threatening to dislodge then. He sinks his nails into his arms, his face, trying to help it escape, escape and leave him free of it, he just wants to be free of it, but it doesn't matter what he does, how far he runs, it always follows him, always catches him, forcing itself back inside his too-small body. So all he does is pace, back and forth, pace and rend his skin and grind his head against the door frame until it stains red.  
  
Then there are the hands that brush against his face, run through his hair. Cold and uncalloused, they cradle him, take a cloth to wipe the blood from his eyes, nose, mouth. Noiseless, but they need no Noise, not the Noise of words. He leans down, presses his forehead against his, and those eyes like the great North Sea are the last things he sees, a shuddering inhalation, the smell of pine and cedar. Exhale, and he can feel the spun gold threads, radiant, course through his maelstromous mind, a gentle caress that dulls the pain. He can feel his thoughts move along them, their weight shouldered not by one, but two. And him. He can feel him, every thought, every atom that makes him, sure as he knows that he can feel the same of him. They, who guard their thoughts, their inner lives, their pasts from the world like dragons. They, who now share themselves wholly, as two minds reach out, twine together, gold thread and his heartbeat and arms that embrace him, and it's beyond him now to suppress a trembling sob.  
  
This world will never bear witness to these moments; it will never know why he will follow this man into oblivion. But perhaps it's not for this world to know.


End file.
